capit@peun11.uucp (Capitain) (11/20/89)
I didn't receive any answer at all to my first mail.
Is there really no interest in a shareware mac emulator???
+-----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------+
! Pit Capitain, DX-PC ! US: {...}uunet!philabs!linus!nixbur!capitain.pad !
! Nixdorf Computer AG ! not US: {...}mcvax!unido!nixpbe!capitain.pad !
+-----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------+hv@uwasa.fi (Harri Valkama LAKE) (11/22/89)
In article <641@nixpbe.UUCP> capit@peun11.uucp (Capitain) writes: >I didn't receive any answer at all to my first mail. >Is there really no interest in a shareware mac emulator??? I think there is interest (actually a lot) but at least I didn't get a very precise view about what is needed as a hardware. I know that I am not capable of doing add-on boards. I have the Mac Roms though (if it can use 128K ROMs). But if someone can certify that I can get a hold of the hardware needed I'm for YES. -- Harri Valkama (hv@uwasa.fi) anon. ftp site (128.214.12.3)
hans@duttnph.tudelft.nl (Hans Buurman) (11/23/89)
In article <641@nixpbe.UUCP> capit@peun11.uucp (Capitain) writes: >I didn't receive any answer at all to my first mail. >Is there really no interest in a shareware mac emulator??? I tried to mail but I couldn't reach you. I have Aladin 3.0 (upgraded from 1.3). From your posting I understand Aladin is dead. But if there is some some path to the future, I'm interested. Hans
scott@cs.odu.edu (Scott Yelich) (11/23/89)
In article <641@nixpbe.UUCP> capit@peun11.uucp (Capitain) writes: > I didn't receive any answer at all to my first mail. > Is there really no interest in a shareware mac emulator??? I responded in private.... other people responded to the network. Again, I said: I would like it, it it had the 128k roms+sound. Scott -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott D. Yelich scott@cs.odu.edu [128.82.8.1] After he pushed me off the cliff, he asked me, as I fell, ``Why'd you jump?'' -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com (11/23/89)
Pit Capitain, DX-PC Nixdorf Computer AG says: >I didn't receive any answer at all to my first mail. >Is there really no interest in a shareware mac emulator??? Yes, I'm sure there would be interest in a good shareware MAC emulator.. But Dave Small has established the standards here for what a MAC emulator should do, and how it should perform... (Playing "Devil's Advocate",) do you think you can compete with the Spectre Mac emulator..? BobR
buggs@cup.portal.com (William Edward JuneJr) (11/24/89)
In article <641@nixpbe.UUCP> capit@peun11.uucp (Capitain) writes: >I didn't receive any answer at all to my first mail. >Is there really no interest in a shareware mac emulator??? Probably because like me, lots of others have the GCR/Spectre. Ed<LOVES his GCR *8^)>June /s ^oops..... not here you don't!
glk01126@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (11/24/89)
I also tried to e-mail, but did not reach you... I think (having tried Spectre & Aladin extensively) that Aladin was the more solid of the two programs, but without 128K rom support, I think it is a dead item. Supporting a file containing the 128K roms may be a good idea since I could borrow someone's Spectre cartridge, read in the roms & store them in a file... Illegal, but private... -Spieu!
matthews@umd5.umd.edu (Mike Matthews) (11/25/89)
In article <111500070@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> glk01126@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu writes: > [stuff deleted] > I think it is a dead item. Supporting a file containing the > 128K roms may be a good idea since I could borrow someone's Spectre > cartridge, read in the roms & store them in a file... Illegal, > but private... > > -Spieu! I hope Apple doesn't see that. You could/would be in mucho big trouble if they did. I kinda hope that this shareware Mac thing specifically checks for illegal ROMs. Mike
tsl@umd5.umd.edu (Tom Livingston) (11/25/89)
In article <5676@umd5.umd.edu> matthews@umd5.umd.edu (Mike Matthews) writes: >In article <111500070@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> glk01126@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu writes: >> >[stuff deleted] >> I think it is a dead item. Supporting a file containing the >> 128K roms may be a good idea since I could borrow someone's Spectre >> cartridge, read in the roms & store them in a file... Illegal, >> but private... >> >> -Spieu! > >I hope Apple doesn't see that. You could/would be in mucho big trouble if they >did. > >I kinda hope that this shareware Mac thing specifically checks for illegal ROMs > >Mike I almost _do_ hope that apple saw that. Usenet, and especially comp.sys.atari.st certainly don't need that type of thing. If people have a short enough memory, piracy was a part of what killed the 8bits, and it has allready threatened the ST's product line (The wp scare, etc.) The people that used to make the 8bit happy copier (Don't know their name) pulled some similar shit by creatin a cartrige that was all set to accept apple ROMS (and, infact, the person at the show booth was quick to explain how to copy the ROMS onto EPROMS), and was very ready to pass out copies of Dave Small's Software. Definately NOT something I'd want to come close to, let alone support. I hope you, dear generic student, rethink your position FAST. Tom Livingston University Of Maryland, Network Infrastructure Computer Science Center (301) 454-2946 University of Maryland tsl@umd5.umd.edu College Park, MD 20742 tsl@camelot.umd.edu
opielask@clutx.clarkson.edu (Scott K. Opiela,,,2684025) (11/27/89)
From article <641@nixpbe.UUCP>, by capit@peun11.uucp (Capitain): > I didn't receive any answer at all to my first mail. > Is there really no interest in a shareware mac emulator??? > YES! We are interested in a shareware mac emulator, if it supports the 128k roms. (I have had no luck with uucp addresses, which probably means others have tried to reach you through e-mail and failed also!) BUT I am not interested in paying $10 (for the cart) $150 (for the 128k roms or $50 for 64k) plus the $30-$40 (shareware fee) that you deserve... If I wanted a 64k rom mac emulator, I could pick up a Magic Sac plus, WITH roms!!, for approx. $40 !! The reason I don't own a Spectre GCR, =Sigh=, today is cause I don't have the cash!!! (but OH do I want one!!!) ********** Now, if your product supported the 128k roms, sound, an easy AND compatible way to bring MAC files to it (I find the magic format acceptable), and any other bells and wistles you'd like to add, I would be INTERESTED, BUT NOT A BUYER. We have determined that something is wrong (for lack of a more exciting word) with the cart. port on my 1040St. Thus, digitizers, 3d glasses, roms for emulators, and anything else you can think of (that fit into the cart. port) are useless to my machine. I am saying that supporting 128k roms on disk, would help me, and would most likely make me a SUPPORTER of your shareware product. (I'm not telling you that you should give out the 128k roms file!!) Others with working ports want to keep them in that condition by keeping cart swaps to a minimum (I did NOT wear out this port, but I have worn out the ports in my INTELLIVISION and my TI-99/4A <GRIN> {remember those?}). That is how I feel, that is what I want, and this is where I am: opielask@clutx.clarkson.edu or naas17@snypotba.bitnet
zimm@portia.Stanford.EDU (Dylan Yolles) (11/27/89)
Given that no one else has spoken up about it, please let me tell you why I am strongly *against* this idea of a shareware Mac emulator. Before flaming, please read on! - It would hurt the ST. David Small has done a great job with the Spectre, and sells it for a reasonable price. Quite frankly, I would like to seem him continue to develop fine ST products such as the '030 board some have been discussing. The creation of a free alternative to his Spectre would not encourage this. (Note, I am not connected with Gadgets By Small.) - A shareware emulator wouldn't be a lot cheaper. Keep in mind that in order to avoid the wrath of Apple, one would still need to make a PCB and buy *original* Apple ROMs. Given that the ROMs typically cost over $100, this is more than half the price of a Spectre anyway. - The effort could be better expended. Let's face it: it's hard to write an emulator like this. It's taken Dave Small a long time to get his working as well as it does. Given that there are so many things we in the ST world lack, it would seem that one would better serve the community by working on something that hasn't been done before. In the area of Mac emulation, for example, it would be great if people would band together with Dave Small to get '030 Mac II emulation going, as well as AppleTalk and MIDI support. In this way, you'd get paid for your labor, and I for one would be even more grateful and impressed. Given that I myself am a mere observer on this project, please consider these as friendly suggestions. I'm not making demands; you can spend your time as you wish! Dylan Yolles zimm%portia@forsythe.stanford.edu
jeff@quark.WV.TEK.COM (Jeff Beadles) (11/27/89)
In article <6997@portia.Stanford.EDU> zimm@portia.Stanford.EDU (Dylan Yolles) writes: >Given that no one else has spoken up about it, please let me tell you >why I am strongly *against* this idea of a shareware Mac emulator. Before >flaming, please read on! >- It would hurt the ST. David Small has done a great job with the Spectre, >and sells it for a reasonable price. Quite frankly, I would like to >seem him continue to develop fine ST products such as the '030 board >some have been discussing. The creation of a free alternative to his >Spectre would not encourage this. (Note, I am not connected with >Gadgets By Small.) ... Wait-a-bloody-second-here... Does this mean that I should not go out and write a share-ware <insert generic type of program here> because it might hurt <insert generic software house/publisher/author>'s business? I find it rather difficult to follow this "logic". Insert "1-2-3" and "Lotus" in your paragraph for "Spectre" and "Gadgets by Small/David Small". Would you be so sympathetic for someone else? Please don't take me wrong. I think that David Small has made a contribution to the ST-world. However, I do not believe that he deserves a monopoly on the business. The "Shareware mac" would not have the support of David's product. Some people would pay the extra bucks, just for the support. [Note: I am not a customer of Gadgets by Small. (or Lotus :-) ] -Jeff -- Jeff Beadles jeff@quark.WV.TEK.COM
zimm@portia.Stanford.EDU (Dylan Yolles) (11/27/89)
In article <5466@orca.WV.TEK.COM> jeff@quark.WV.TEK.COM (Jeff Beadles) writes: |In article <6997@portia.Stanford.EDU> zimm@portia.Stanford.EDU (Dylan Yolles) | writes: ||- It would hurt the ST. David Small has done a great job with the Spectre, ||and sells it for a reasonable price. Quite frankly, I would like to ||seem him continue to develop fine ST products such as the '030 board ||some have been discussing. The creation of a free alternative to his ||Spectre would not encourage this. (Note, I am not connected with ||Gadgets By Small.) | |Wait-a-bloody-second-here... | |Does this mean that I should not go out and write a share-ware |<insert generic type of program here> because it might hurt |<insert generic software house/publisher/author>'s business? | |I find it rather difficult to follow this "logic". Insert "1-2-3" and "Lotus" |in your paragraph for "Spectre" and "Gadgets by Small/David Small". Would you |be so sympathetic for someone else? You should not go out and write a share-ware version of someone's package IF you are *worried* about hurting their business. My point is that, given the very small size of the ST market, we *should* be worried about GBS's future. I'm not saying that it is morally wrong to write a shareware Mac emulator; I'm just saying that writing it will hurt GBS, and given the small size of GBS and the quality of their products, it is not in any ST user's interests to hurt them. By the way, the analogy to writing a shareware version of Lotus is not quite applicable. Given the size of the IBM market, a shareware version of Lotus isn't about to bankrupt anyone. Also, a shareware Mac emulator is likely to be functionally very similar to the commercial product, whereas the shareware Lotus is likely to be much worse. But whether or not what I say in this paragraph is true or relevant, it does not take away from my initial argument that we should all do our best to support GBS, because GBS is important to the ST. Dylan zimm%portia@forsythe.stanford.edu
scott@cs.odu.edu (Scott Yelich) (11/28/89)
In article <5466@orca.WV.TEK.COM> jeff@quark.WV.TEK.COM (Jeff Beadles) writes: > Wait-a-bloody-second-here... > Does this mean that I should not go out and write a share-ware > <insert generic type of program here> because it might hurt > <insert generic software house/publisher/author>'s business? Please do! I would love to see an aaple][e, C64, vic20 emulator... I also wouldn't mind a TI and sinclair emulator.. These things are great demos... if it wasn't for copyrights and legal problems, I would suspect that there would be a lot more of these gems written for every type of computer. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott D. Yelich scott@cs.odu.edu [128.82.8.1] After he pushed me off the cliff, he asked me, as I fell, ``Why'd you jump?'' -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
harryk@bucsb.UUCP (Harry Karayiannis) (11/28/89)
Guys, I'm really surprised from the way a lot of people faced the possibility
of a Shareware MAC emulation for the ST! I think the idea is great, and I don't
see any reason for discouraging it! We live in a FREE(?) country, don't we? Any
one is free to write any program he wants and distribute it in any way he likes
I don't understand the logic of "a shareware mac would hurt David Small and
thus the ST community". Small has done a GREAT job with the GCR, but it doesn't
give him the right to have the monopoly of the MAC emulators on the ST
The german guys who wrote this shareware MAC, have every right to support the
ir efforts. They 've probably spent as many hours as D.Small has, in order to
finish their emulator;why should David be the king of Mac emulators for the ST?
If this is the way things should be, then every Software House would make an
application knowing that noone else will write something similar..and thus
there is no reason for them to upgrade their product as often as they should!
Competition forces authors to do their best. Take Lotus 1 2 3, as an example:
it was the #1 bussines package, until Excel came out! Almost everyone accep-
ted that Excel was better than Lotus...and some months later Lotus 1 2 3
announced the latest version of the progarm which is AWSOME!
You see guys, that's the way it goes! The Sharware MAC will HELP the ST world
because it will force D.Small to create something even more advanced than GCR.
There is something more! Some people (like me) don't want to purchase the GCR
just because they don't need it desperately, and they don't have $400 to spend!
If I wanted a MAC, I would have bought one in the first place!I'm oversatisfied
from my MEGA2. I 'm not saying that I don't like MAC emulators (i love 'em) but
I don't want to spend $400 to get one! A shareware MAC would give me the chance
to use a MAC for as much money I think it is worth it!
(The reasons for which I'd like to use a MAC are:
1. to play some PD games (i have a monochrome monitor, you know) during the
breaks from my programming projects.
2. to get familiar with the MAC enviroment
3. if i find it useful,I may consider to port some of my programs to the MAC
IMHO it is not worth $400 just for these 3 things)
So, YES I will support the ALADIN, for the reasons I stated above, because I've
seen an earlier ALADIN version running, and because Germans have proved they lo
ve the ST and their software is almost perfect (Tempus, Modula-2,LABEL-EXPRESS)
********************
to avoid any misunderstanding, I must state that:
1. I'm not German....I'm Greek
2. I have nothing to do with the ALADIN authors (and of course I don't take $
from them)
3. (to D.Small)
I think you understand what I tried to say! I have nothing against you;
on the contrary, I think you are a real pro and I respect and admire you!
GCR is awsome, and reading some of your published interviews, i say you are
a PLUS for the ST community! I hope you agree it's awful that some people
use your name to prevent others from getting recognition for their work!!!
*******************
I thank you all
for the time you spent
to read this article
HARRY KARAYIANNIS
3rd year Computer Science
Boston Universitybro@eunomia.rice.edu (Douglas Monk) (11/28/89)
A few points: 1) In order not to violate Apple's copyrights, ROMS must be made available for this guy by way of a cartridge. That is going to be expensive, so the likely result is the shareware fee will be paid even less often than usual. 2) In fairness to David Small and as an obvious business move, don't make the cartridge steal his thunder. (His software has checks to make sure the ROMS are in one of his cartridges and aren't EPROMS. Making a cartridge to get around this like the Discovery cartridge tries to results only in OUTRIGHT PIRACY of his software for use with the alternate cartridge. Also, if the cartridge is compatible, VIRTUALLY NO ONE WILL EVER USE THE SHAREWARE SOFTWARE OR PAY THE FEE: they'll just use his software and hurt his business AND yours.) 3) Comparing David Small to Lotus is laughably self-serving, the kind of defense that pirates sometimes make: "No one gets hurt, only some big business..." David Small is a small businessman trying to make a living while producing outstanding technical achievements on a machine that much of the world can easily afford to ignore. The market for STs in general is too small to take the existence of such guys for granted: if they get burned enough, they'll just go work somewhere else. We cannot afford that. Dave Small sells STs with his work, and that helps keep my machine viable. Disclaimer: These views are mine, not necessarily my organization's. Doug Monk (bro@rice.edu)
covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) (11/28/89)
I wouldn't worry too much about a shareware Mac emulator hurting Gadgets By Small much. First, the German (formerly Aladin) only used the 64K ROMs, so many newer mac programs won't run. Second, Dave Small has provided outstanding support for his products. If the shareware mac emulator were to compete with Spectre 128/GCR (tm) of Gadgets By Small, it will lose. As long as Dave Small and Company continue supporting Spectre/GCR. So, go for it. The folks who buy the Shareware mac Emulator probably wouldn't have bought the GCR anyway. But why buy the shareware?? GCR is NEW and WORKS and can read/write REAL mac floppies. So, why not buy it?? Figure, once you buy the hardware (which you only do once) you start buying software. And you will spend many hundreds of $$ on Mac SW. So, why skimp on the cost of the emulator?? The GCR is a bargain at twice its price!! Rich Covert
jeff@quark.WV.TEK.COM (Jeff Beadles) (11/28/89)
In article <3268@brazos.Rice.edu> bro@eunomia.rice.edu (Douglas Monk) writes: >3) Comparing David Small to Lotus is laughably self-serving, the kind of >defense that pirates sometimes make: "No one gets hurt, only some big >business..." David Small is a small businessman trying to make a living while >producing outstanding technical achievements on a machine that much of the >world can easily afford to ignore. The market for STs in general is too small >to take the existence of such guys for granted: if they get burned enough, >they'll just go work somewhere else. We cannot afford that. Dave Small sells >STs with his work, and that helps keep my machine viable. I NEVER said that nobody would get hurt. In fact, I'm sure that this would take some business away from GBS. However, I do not believe that David Small deserves a monopoly on Mac emulators? What happened to free competition? I used "Lotus" as an example. I could have said Antic. Should nobody else write a terminal program just because they wrote Flash?? I feel that if someone else wants to put together a "Shareware Mac", (and of course that they don't try to steal from David's work) more power to them! I don't think that David's work should be monopolistic, just as I feel that Avante Garde's PC-DITTO shouldn't have 100% control over the market for PC emulators. -Jeff P.S. No, I'm not a customer of GBS. It's too pricey for me. I do own PC-Ditto. It sits on the shelf and keeps the dust off of my desk. -- Jeff Beadles jeff@quark.WV.TEK.COM
tainter@cbnewsd.ATT.COM (johnathan.tainter) (11/28/89)
In article <5466@orca.WV.TEK.COM> jeff@quark.WV.TEK.COM (Jeff Beadles) writes: >In article <6997@portia.Stanford.EDU> zimm@portia.Stanford.EDU (Dylan Yolles) > writes: >>- It would hurt the ST. David Small has done a great job with the Spectre, >Does this mean that I should not go out and write a share-ware ><insert generic type of program here> because it might hurt ><insert generic software house/publisher/author>'s business? [Analogy substituting Lotus for Spectre deleted] >Jeff Beadles jeff@quark.WV.TEK.COM There are two significant differences here. Lotus is sold for a premium price so a shareware version could be expected to be successful and therefore desirable and probably would be supported. Spectre is reasonably priced and therefore a shareware version is not going to be particularly competitive and therefore should be expected to be poorly maintained. Thus substituting a poor piece of work for a good piece of work. Lotus is sold high volume at high returns. It would not be expected that a reduction in its sales would destroy the company. Spectre is sold low volume with small margin, a reduction by 1/3 would probably be fatal to Gadgets by Small. --johnathan.a.tainter-- att!ihlpb!tainter
jtreworgy@eagle.wesleyan.edu (11/28/89)
In article <100@bucsb.UUCP>, harryk@bucsb.UUCP (Harry Karayiannis) writes: > > Guys, I'm really surprised from the way a lot of people faced the possibility > of a Shareware MAC emulation for the ST! I think the idea is great, and I don't > see any reason for discouraging it! We live in a FREE(?) country, don't we? Any > one is free to write any program he wants and distribute it in any way he likes > I don't understand the logic of "a shareware mac would hurt David Small and > thus the ST community". Small has done a GREAT job with the GCR, but it doesn't > give him the right to have the monopoly of the MAC emulators on the ST The thing with a Mac emulator is that no matter what, you have to spend $140 on the ROMs. So what does it matter if you spend $20 for a shareware one or a bit more for a commercial one? The shareware one probably wouldn't "sell" anyway. It just seems silly for a lot of different people to invest a lot of time making a Mac emulator when the product already has several incarnations on the market. The time would be better spent making a Commodore 64 emulator, for example. (And some way to pipeline the ROMs out of a real 64... enough people own these anyway such that it wouldn't be illegal or unfeasible for each buyer to get them legally that way). > There is something more! Some people (like me) don't want to purchase the GCR > just because they don't need it desperately, and they don't have $400 to spend! > If I wanted a MAC, I would have bought one in the first place!I'm oversatisfied > from my MEGA2. I 'm not saying that I don't like MAC emulators (i love 'em) but > I don't want to spend $400 to get one! A shareware MAC would give me the chance > to use a MAC for as much money I think it is worth it! > Again, unless you plan on getting the ROMs illegally a shareware Mac is not going to cost much less than the commercial one... > (The reasons for which I'd like to use a MAC are: > 1. to play some PD games (i have a monochrome monitor, you know) during the > breaks from my programming projects. > > 2. to get familiar with the MAC enviroment > > 3. if i find it useful,I may consider to port some of my programs to the MAC > > IMHO it is not worth $400 just for these 3 things) Is it worth $360? (I expect a shareware Mac would cost about $20, and the commercial software could probably be had for not much more than $60... I am assuming your $400 comes from a Mac disk drive & 128k ROMs). > > HARRY KARAYIANNIS As a side note... there is on the Amiga now a pirated version of the A-Max Mac emulator which has the ROMs on disk. (I've seen it). I think a shareware version, especially one which supports putting the ROMs on disk directly, would have the immediate side effect of giving everyone in the Atari ST community (which has been heralded for its piracy) a free, highly illegal, Macintosh. -- James A. Treworgy -- No quote here for insurance reasons -- jtreworgy@eagle.wesleyan.edu jtreworgy%eagle@WESLEYAN.BITNET
hase@netmbx.UUCP (Hartmut Semken) (11/28/89)
In article <5676@umd5.umd.edu> matthews@umd5.umd.edu (Mike Matthews) writes: >> I think it is a dead item. Supporting a file containing the >> 128K roms may be a good idea since I could borrow someone's Spectre >> cartridge, read in the roms & store them in a file... Illegal, >> but private... >I hope Apple doesn't see that. You could/would be in mucho big trouble if they >did. I hope, Pit will not make this mistake; Apple would take legal action in this case - and win, of course. > >I kinda hope that this shareware Mac thing specifically checks for illegal ROMs. How? I suspect Pit to read in the ROMs from a standard ROM cartridge (this simple thing with 2 sockets and a 7400 that plugs to the cartridge port and offers 128 KBytes of ROM); it would be impossible to tell original chips from copies in EPROM. But it would leave responsibility to the user; the author of the software does not suggest the user to do anything illeagal... hase -- Hartmut Semken, Lupsteiner Weg 67, 1000 Berlin 37 hase@netmbx.UUCP Dennis had stepped up into the top seat whet its founder had died of a lethal overdose of brick wall, taken while under the influence of a Ferrari and a bottle of tequila. (Douglas Adams; the long dark teatime...)
hans@duttnph.tudelft.nl (Hans Buurman) (11/28/89)
After all the (probably justified) compliments to Small's gadget, let me remark here that I know the makers of Aladin to be capable of producing an excellent emulator. Aladin has been around for years and has been very satisfactory for a number of people around here. If the shareware mac is of the same quality but uses 128k roms, I'd be very interested. By the way, all those (u.s.) people who would feel that a shareware Mac would be unfair to Dave Small suggest that capitalism is into as much a decline as communism :-) Hans ======================================================================== Hans Buurman | hans@duttnph.tudelft.nl | hans@duttnph.UUCP Pattern Recognition Group | 31-(0)15-78 46 94 | Faculty of Applied Physics | Delft University of Technology Disclaimer: I don't have a real Atari, I use a shareware emulator on my Junior Computer (1 Mhz. 6502, 1 k ram & rom). I am myself emulated on a
robert@infmx.UUCP (Robert Coleman) (11/29/89)
In article <3268@brazos.Rice.edu> bro@eunomia.rice.edu (Douglas Monk) writes: > >A few points: > >1) In order not to violate Apple's copyrights, ROMS must be made available >for this guy by way of a cartridge. That is going to be expensive, so the >likely result is the shareware fee will be paid even less often than usual. > >2) In fairness to David Small and as an obvious business move, don't make the >cartridge steal his thunder. (His software has checks to make sure the ROMS >are in one of his cartridges and aren't EPROMS. Making a cartridge to get >around this like the Discovery cartridge tries to results only in OUTRIGHT >PIRACY of his software for use with the alternate cartridge. Also, if the >cartridge is compatible, VIRTUALLY NO ONE WILL EVER USE THE SHAREWARE >SOFTWARE OR PAY THE FEE: they'll just use his software and hurt his business >AND yours.) > >3) Comparing David Small to Lotus is laughably self-serving, the kind of >defense that pirates sometimes make: "No one gets hurt, only some big >business..." David Small is a small businessman trying to make a living while >producing outstanding technical achievements on a machine that much of the >world can easily afford to ignore. The market for STs in general is too small >to take the existence of such guys for granted: if they get burned enough, >they'll just go work somewhere else. We cannot afford that. Dave Small sells >STs with his work, and that helps keep my machine viable. > I cannot believe I am reading this. The hidden suppositions in this way of thinking are truly amazing: 1. DAVID SMALL IS A SMALL BUSINESSMAN AND THEREFORE DESERVES SPECIAL PROTECTION. Nonsense. There is nothing magical about a small businessman. Small businessmen should be subject to the same level of competition as everyone else; if they are good, they succeed and become big businessmen. If they are not good, then the person who can produce it Better, Cheaper is the one we "cannot afford <to have go work somewhere else>". Incidentally, when is the magical point when we decide that David Small is no longer a small businessman? Potentially, he stands to make a lot of money producing, in "cooperation :^)" with Atari, a very cheap Mac. Lotus was once a very small company with a big idea, too. When is it going to be OK to "steal David's thunder"? 2. DAVID SMALL IS A GENIUS WHO MAY FAIL IF HE FACES COMPETITION. Nonsense. Amazing how people who respect his accomplishments think he may immediately fall flat on his face because he faces competition. That doesn't say a lot for your opinion of him, does it? In fact, if he does face serious competition from someone (I personally do not think it likely) he will move onwards and upwards, produce new products, constantly push the technology edge, JUST EXACTLY AS HE IS DOING NOW! 3. SHAREWARE IS NOT OK IF IT DUPLICATES SMALL BUSINESSPERSON'S SOFTWARE. Hmmm. I wonder what shareware/freeware you own that you could have paid for, that could have supported a small businessperson? You may very well be consistent in this philosophy, but I guarantee most other people aren't. You using Uniterm, for instance? Gulam? Remember, even if a BIG company is issuing a product, it may have purchased the product for distribution from a small businessperson. Does that small businessperson have royalties? Will the company purchase any more products from a small businessperson who's products have been undermined by shareware/freeware? Are you against shareware/freeware as a concept? If it duplicates anything a profession group has done, it is going to hurt someone "small" (as opposed to big, not "David" :^) ) somewhere down the line... 4. UNSUPPORTED SHAREWARE WILL BE SNAPPED UP IN PREFERENCE TO SUPPORTED PROFESSIONAL SOFTWARE. Well, I notice Flash is still selling, in spite of glowing reviews and the easy availability of Uniterm. In fact, the competition to Dave would be in price points. Anyone who is willing to spend 400 bucks for a Mac will probably opt for the supported Mac emulator by the man with the big rep; anyone who is not interested enough to spend 400 bucks but might still want a Mac if the price is right and they don't care for much support will purchase the shareware (or just use it, as is the risk of shareware). They will not be competing in the same market. 5. IF DAVID GETS BURNED BY SHAREWARE, HE WILL MOVE ON TO SOMEWHERE ELSE. Where? Every computer I know has shareware/freeware. This is not an Atari-only phenomenon. Sorry, I think David is smarter than to assume that "moving on" will solve his problems. I'd be much more concerned that he might realize that the potentials to sell anything he does on more major computers is likely to gross greater returns... 6. THIS OTHER GUY IS NOT WORTHY OF CONSIDERATION. I may misremember this mail, but what I recall is that both these products were developed independently, and found different market niches (American vs. Europe). This other guy (I wish I knew his name! I'm not intentionally being insulting) got stomped on by Apple, and was put out of business. David has not been stomped on by Apple...yet. This other guy may very well be in the same league as Dave, but "nipped in the bud". Why does this make Dave more worthy of support? Just about the only thing I can agree with is that the product should check that the Mac roms are roms, not EPROMS. I think that this may be necessary, anyway, to avoid getting sued by Apple (it happened to this guy once, you know...Apple is quite prepared to do this if they can, and tie up assets if they can't). I am not interested in a Mac emulator at any reasonable price (OK, 10 bucks? Well, if I don't have to do any work...). If I was, I would personally use David's, because I would want the support on such a complicated product, and because I wouldn't want to build the necessary hardware myself. However, I find this "David Small is a Ghod and we must do anything to keep him happy" philosophy repellent and, in a backwards sort of way, insulting to Dave. I respect him (not worship) and I believe he will do just fine, competition or no. You should, too. Incidentally, has anyone asked Dave how he feels about this competition? I bet he's not particularly worried... Robert
greg.trice@canremote.uucp (GREG TRICE) (11/29/89)
Why does everybody assume that a Mac emulator has to use Mac ROMs or any Mac code at all? There are an infinite number of ways to do a given job and it is perfectly possible for somebody to carefully read all the Mac documentation and then sit down and write code that will do exactly the same job as the Mac roms, but have not a byte in common with them in code. This is the situation with most IBM compatible systems. Though they are functionally identical to the IBM product, their ROMs contain different, but functionally identical code. It should be perfectly possible to produce a Mac emulator that used no ROMs at all, but was wholly disk based (given sufficient memory to hold the quondam ROM code in RAM). --- * Via ProDoor 3.1R
matthews@umd5.umd.edu (Mike Matthews) (11/29/89)
In article <3870@netmbx.UUCP> hase@netmbx.UUCP (Hartmut Semken) writes: >>I kinda hope that this shareware Mac thing specifically checks for illegal ROMs. >How? >I suspect Pit to read in the ROMs from a standard ROM cartridge (this >simple thing with 2 sockets and a 7400 that plugs to the cartridge port >and offers 128 KBytes of ROM); it would be impossible to tell original >chips from copies in EPROM. >But it would leave responsibility to the user; the author of the >software does not suggest the user to do anything illeagal... > >hase >-- >Hartmut Semken, Lupsteiner Weg 67, 1000 Berlin 37 hase@netmbx.UUCP 'Impossible' is a word best left out of computer hacker's works. Dave Small checks for illegal ROMs/EPROMs in his Spectre 128 and Spectre GCR cartridges. ROMs and EPROMS aren't EXACTLY the same, in some manner. Perhaps he tests the speed of retrieval. Perhaps he tests some sort of electrical property, such as resistance or somesuch (I know nothing about this, but it's just an idea). If the author of the software invites people to illegally copy ROMs or whatnot, then 99 times out of 100, the user will copy the ROMs. Especially if you HAVE to. Mike
nemeth@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Gabe Nemeth) (11/30/89)
In article <5694@umd5.umd.edu> matthews@umd5.umd.edu (Mike Matthews) writes: >In article <3870@netmbx.UUCP> hase@netmbx.UUCP (Hartmut Semken) writes: >>>I kinda hope that this shareware Mac thing specifically checks for illegal ROMs. >>How? >>I suspect Pit to read in the ROMs from a standard ROM cartridge (this >>simple thing with 2 sockets and a 7400 that plugs to the cartridge port >>and offers 128 KBytes of ROM); it would be impossible to tell original >>chips from copies in EPROM. >>But it would leave responsibility to the user; the author of the >>software does not suggest the user to do anything illeagal... >> >>hase >>-- >>Hartmut Semken, Lupsteiner Weg 67, 1000 Berlin 37 hase@netmbx.UUCP > >'Impossible' is a word best left out of computer hacker's works. Dave Small >checks for illegal ROMs/EPROMs in his Spectre 128 and Spectre GCR cartridges. >ROMs and EPROMS aren't EXACTLY the same, in some manner. Perhaps he tests the >speed of retrieval. Perhaps he tests some sort of electrical property, such >as resistance or somesuch (I know nothing about this, but it's just an idea). > >If the author of the software invites people to illegally copy ROMs or whatnot, >then 99 times out of 100, the user will copy the ROMs. Especially if you HAVE >to. > >Mike The LEGAL "ROMS" my mac uses are part number 23512 - this is a windowless eprom (OTP) version of the 27512. Therefore it IS an eprom physically but since you can't erase it it is a rom (prom). Dave small inverts a couple of lines on his cartridge to deter people from making their own and copying his software (or using the magic sac!). I guess his software re-inverts the inverted data as it is read off the cartridge. /leonard
jeff@quark.WV.TEK.COM (Jeff Beadles) (12/01/89)
In article <4123@eagle.wesleyan.edu> jtreworgy@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes: |The thing with a Mac emulator is that no matter what, you have to spend $140 on |the ROMs. So what does it matter if you spend $20 for a shareware one or a bit |more for a commercial one? The shareware one probably wouldn't "sell" anyway. |It just seems silly for a lot of different people to invest a lot of time |making a Mac emulator when the product already has several incarnations on the |market. The time would be better spent making a Commodore 64 emulator, for |example. (And some way to pipeline the ROMs out of a real 64... enough people |own these anyway such that it wouldn't be illegal or unfeasible for each buyer |to get them legally that way). |-- |James A. Treworgy -- No quote here for insurance reasons -- |jtreworgy@eagle.wesleyan.edu jtreworgy%eagle@WESLEYAN.BITNET Wait. GBS gets something like $300+ for the GCR. I think that the "plain" version is > $100.00 (usd) **THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE THE ROMS** Thus, if my math is correct: Shareware GBS Hw/Sw $20.00 vs $100.00 Roms $140.00 (same) $140.00 ------ ------ Total $160.00 vs $240.00 This makes it MUCH more affordable. Heck, I could be convinced to buy one for that price. $80.00 is more than "a bit more" -Jeff -- Jeff Beadles jeff@quark.WV.TEK.COM
bro@eunomia.rice.edu (Douglas Monk) (12/01/89)
In article <2716@infmx.UUCP> robert@infmx.UUCP (Robert Coleman) writes: #In article <3268@brazos.Rice.edu> bro@eunomia.rice.edu (Douglas Monk) writes: ... #>1) In order not to violate Apple's copyrights, ROMS must be made available #>for this guy by way of a cartridge. [or some other similar mechanism for legal reasons... see below] ... #>2) In fairness to David Small and as an obvious business move, don't make #the cartridge steal his thunder. [by which I mean it is not a good idea to set out in such a way as to ENCOURAGE ripping him OR ANY ONE ELSE OFF. At the outset, design to allow the shareware system to stand separate, and not result in the shareware cartridge being used with HIS software. If you want to write your software to work on your cartridge and his, more power to you. If you want his software to work on your cartridge, you are just pirating cartridge designs, and should not expect to get ANY money for your software.] ... #>3) Comparing David Small to Lotus is laughably self-serving, the kind of #>defense that pirates sometimes make: "No one gets hurt, only some big #>business..." ... # I cannot believe I am reading this. The hidden suppositions in this way #of thinking are truly amazing: # #1. DAVID SMALL IS A SMALL BUSINESSMAN AND THEREFORE DESERVES SPECIAL PROTECTION. Wrong. The real suppositions are: A) Businesses deserve (and have) legal protection for their products. B) The Atari market is small, and tends to attract small businesses at best. C) It is easier to damage and discourage small businesses than large ones. D) Equating a small business with a large one as a ethical moralization for predatory behavior is specious. Some conclusions that derive from these are: If a product for the Atari market is designed in such a way as to encourage ripping off ANY business, big or small, which contributes to the success of that market, it is NOT a good idea and is not in the interests of the market (and hence the product itself). The only way that "small" enters the picture is that a small business is less able to afford to defend itself against predatory behavior. I used the Discovery cartridge as an example of a bad idea: you could (reportedly) pop in Mac ROMs and pirate a copy of Small's work and have a Mac clone without paying him for his cartridge and software package. PLEASE NOTE : I DO NOT OBJECT TO COMPETITION. If the same cartridge were available with its own Mac emulation software, I wouldn't have any objection, provided it did not encourage piracy. The easiest way to accomplish that is to make sure Dave Small's software DID not work with the other cartridge, since his software goes to some pains to make sure it IS using one of his cartridges. #2. DAVID SMALL IS A GENIUS WHO MAY FAIL IF HE FACES COMPETITION. Sorry. This assumption does not enter into it. Flooding the small market with a cheap hardware cartridge work-a-like that can use his software once pirated doesn't rate being called "competition". ANYONE, genius or not, will fail in the face of being ripped off enough. Remember, I AM NOT OPPOSED TO FAIR COMPETITION AS I OUTLINED ABOVE. That is why I take issue with this being a "hidden assumption". #3. SHAREWARE IS NOT OK IF IT DUPLICATES SMALL BUSINESSPERSON'S SOFTWARE. Again, this is not an assumption at all. Whether a product is shareware, freeware, or commercial, I have no objections to fair and healthy competition. Just as I object to the commercial Discovery cartridge feature I indicated, I pointed out the objections to similar "features" of the shareware cartridge. That does not preclude the product, it just puts parameters on what I consider to be a viable design. # Hmmm. I wonder what shareware/freeware you own that you could have #paid for, that could have supported a small businessperson? You may very well #be consistent in this philosophy, but I guarantee most other people aren't. # You using Uniterm, for instance? Gulam? No, I use Flash and Mark Williams' msh. I certainly don't object to Uniterm: I think it is a great program. Likewise with Gulam. I just happen to have other programs that I find more convenient to use. As should surprise no one, they are all legal copies. I don't pirate software. As for shareware, at the recent World of Atari in Dallas, I spent over $100 dollars for shareware direct from the developers, including some that I already had (but did not use since I hadn't registered for it yet). Sigh. Sometimes being honest is inconvenient. #... Are you against shareware/freeware as a concept? If it duplicates #anything a profession group has done, it is going to hurt someone "small" #(as opposed to big, not "David" :^) ) somewhere down the line... As I just indicated, I believe in shareware/freeware as a viable competitor to commercial concerns. I ONLY take issue with unethical application of the concept. If I PERSONALLY had a Mac emulator that worked off of a cartridge that would not support Dave Small's software, I PERSONALLY would NOT release it as shareware. I MIGHT release it as a commercial product if I thought the return would be adequate for my trouble. (Which it might not: Dave would be very hard to compete fairly against, and I PERSONALLY have not other way to compete.) #4. UNSUPPORTED SHAREWARE WILL BE SNAPPED UP IN PREFERENCE TO SUPPORTED #PROFESSIONAL SOFTWARE. OOPS. You seem to have read one of my assumptions backwards. I actually assume that UNSUPPORTED PROFESSIONAL PIRATED SOFTWARE WILL BE SNAPPED UP IN PREFERENCE TO AN INFERIOR SHAREWARE PRODUCT. That is the whole point to not stealing Dave Small's thunder: it is the ONLY way to keep the shareware aspect viable. Otherwise, it will just be an aid to pirates. #5. IF DAVID GETS BURNED BY SHAREWARE, HE WILL MOVE ON TO SOMEWHERE ELSE. The way I would put it would be: IF DAVID GETS BURNED, HE WILL MOVE ON TO SOMEWHERE ELSE. Shareware has nothing to do with it. He could be driven out by legitimate competition from a shareware product such as I outlined, and I would have no ethical objection. I DO object to people being ripped off. And we'd all miss him :-). #6. THIS OTHER GUY IS NOT WORTHY OF CONSIDERATION. # # I may misremember this mail, but what I recall is that both these #products were developed independently, and found different market niches #(American vs. Europe). This other guy (I wish I knew his name! I'm not #intentionally being insulting) got stomped on by Apple, and was put out of #business. David has not been stomped on by Apple...yet. This other guy may #very well be in the same league as Dave, but "nipped in the bud". Why does #this make Dave more worthy of support? According to press reports, the Aladin system included illegal copies of the Macintosh ROMs, and Apple shot the product down. The developers have every right to convert their work into a legal product which Apple has no way to affect. DAVID SMALL HAD TO DO THIS! Early versions of the Magic Sac project were altered so that only legal Mac ROMs could be used, and the ROMs must be physically present (not illegally copied on disk, or whatever). He WAS stomped on by Apple. THAT is why he NOW has no trouble with Apple: he altered what might have been an illegal product into what is demonstrably legal. To me it makes more sense for the Aladin group to do likewise and to keep the product commercial, than to convert the system to just an illegal shareware system rather than an illegal product. I actually give them the benefit of the doubt by assuming that they will take the cartridge-and-ROM route to legality anyway, despite a lack of anu such indication : the mail suggested making Aladin more-or-less as-is shareware - which would certainly be illegal and upon which Apple would certainly stomp. From an ethical standpoint, I WOULD support the effort of the Aladin group to produce a legal competitive product. But don't expect me to buy one unless it is superior, not merely cheaper: the competition beat them to me! (Scratch me as a market niche :-) # ... However, I find this "David Small is a Ghod and we must do anything to #keep him happy" philosophy repellent and, in a backwards sort of way, #insulting to Dave. I respect him (not worship) and I believe he will do just #fine, competition or no. You should, too. I should stress that as a rabid monotheist I certainly do NOT consider David Small a "Ghod", nor do I "worship" him. I also think he will do fine in the face of competition, I just differ (or more correctly more strictly define) what I consider to be "competition" and what I consider to be "predatory behavior". # Incidentally, has anyone asked Dave how he feels about this #competition? I bet he's not particularly worried... From published reports, he WAS not pleased with the Discovery cartridge "feature", nor with the nature of Aladin's competition (since they used on-disk copies of the ROMs and he couldn't). Being a firm believer in a level playing field, I see his point of view. #Robert Doug Monk (bro@rice.edu) Disclaimer: These views are mine, not necessarily my organization's.
johnb@pnet01.cts.com (John Bunch) (12/02/89)
If in fact David Small is a genius, then he will figure out a way to
get over the shareware aladdin. I.E.
Midi Support
Appletalk support
etc..
John
UUCP: {hplabs!hp-sdd ucsd nosc}!crash!pnet01!johnb
ARPA: crash!pnet01!johnb@nosc.mil
INET: johnb@pnet01.cts.comcapit@peun11.uucp (Capitain) (12/04/89)
Hi, I'm the one who offered the Shareware Emulator. Our backbone in the US was out of order for the last weeks, so I missed the beginning of this debate. But now we are back, and I have some comments on various articles. I didn't include copies of all statements because of the length of the article. > I'm sorry for posting this here but my reply to the 'sender' just bounced. This may be due to the problems with our backbone. But I received mail only from Europe yet. Could someone please try to mail again to check the connection? > The effort could be better expended. Let's face it: it's hard to > write an emulator like this. It's taken Dave Small a long time to get > his working as well as it does. If I had to start from scratch, it would be very hard work, indeed. But as I mentioned in my first letter, the emulator is ready. It has been on the market in Europe since 1987. The only thing I have to do is to re-develop some utilities around the emulator, which haven't been written by myself. (For example tools for configuring the emulator, transferring software from the Mac to the ST, and so on...) > You should not go out and write a share-ware version of someone's > package IF you are *worried* about hurting their business. My point is that, > given the very small size of the ST market, we *should* be worried about > GBS's future. I'm not saying that it is morally wrong to write a shareware > Mac emulator; I'm just saying that writing it will hurt GBS, and given > the small size of GBS and the quality of their products, it is not in any > ST user's interests to hurt them. I was very surprised about how much you were concerned with the future of GBS (with respect to the shareware emulator, of course). I'd really like to see any comments from Dave Small on the whole topic. In the past, he hasn't been too shy to comment on Aladin... Besides: I'm a small (one-man-part-time-)"company" too. > Yes, I'm sure there would be interest in a good shareware MAC emulator.. > But Dave Small has established the standards here for what a MAC emulator > should do, and how it should perform... > (Playing "Devil's Advocate",) do you think you can compete with the Spectre > Mac emulator..? As I said in my first letter, I know the emulator I'm offering is not state-of-the-art, because it supports only the 64K Roms and it can't read Original Mac Disks. Otherwise, it would be shareware. I think there wouldn't be much harm to Spectre GCR. But again, I'd like to hear from Dave. > So, YES I will support the ALADIN, for the reasons I stated above, > because I've seen an earlier ALADIN version running, and because > Germans have proved they love the ST and their software is almost > perfect (Tempus, Modula-2,LABEL-EXPRESS) Although the shareware emulator IS the emulator of the ALADIN product, it will be named different. > In order not to violate Apple's copyrights, ROMS must be made available > for this guy by way of a cartridge. Correct. You'll have to get the ROMs on a cartridge to be able to use the emulator. (See my first letter.) > In fairness to David Small and as an obvious business move, don't make the > cartridge steal his thunder. (His software has checks to make sure the ROMS > are in one of his cartridges and aren't EPROMS. Making a cartridge to get > around this like the Discovery cartridge tries to results only in OUTRIGHT > PIRACY of his software for use with the alternate cartridge. Also, if the > cartridge is compatible, VIRTUALLY NO ONE WILL EVER USE THE SHAREWARE > SOFTWARE OR PAY THE FEE: they'll just use his software and hurt his business > AND yours.) I'm absolutely not planning to pirate anybody's software!!! The emulator will not allow anybody to run Spectre without the Spectre's cartridge!!! This is a product totally of its own, developed by myself without ever looking at any code of Dave Small! (I prefer my own and Apple's code.) > Spectre is reasonably priced and therefore a shareware version is not > going to be particularly competitive and therefore should be expected > to be poorly maintained. Thus substituting a poor piece of work for a > good piece of work. Have you ever seen or heard of ALADIN? How can you talk about it as "a poor piece of work" ??? > The only way that "small" enters the picture is that a small business is > less able to afford to defend itself against predatory behavior. That's exactly why the German company isn't selling ALADIN any more: because they couldn't afford defending themselves against Apple Germany. The trials would have been too expensive. > According to press reports, the Aladin system included illegal copies of > the Macintosh ROMs, and Apple shot the product down. The developers have > every right to convert their work into a legal product which Apple has no > way to affect. DAVID SMALL HAD TO DO THIS! Early versions of the Magic Sac > project were altered so that only legal Mac ROMs could be used, and the > ROMs must be physically present (not illegally copied on disk, or > whatever). He WAS stomped on by Apple. THAT is why he NOW has no trouble > with Apple: he altered what might have been an illegal product into what > is demonstrably legal. To me it makes more sense for the Aladin group to > do likewise and to keep the product commercial, than to convert the system > to just an illegal shareware system rather than an illegal product. I > actually give them the benefit of the doubt by assuming that they will > take the cartridge-and-ROM route to legality anyway, despite a lack of anu > such indication : the mail suggested making Aladin more-or-less as-is > shareware - which would certainly be illegal and upon which Apple would > certainly stomp. > ... > From published reports, he WAS not pleased with the Discovery cartridge > "feature", nor with the nature of Aladin's competition (since they used > on-disk copies of the ROMs and he couldn't). We NEVER used on-disk copies of the Roms! I don't know which press you're reading and where they get their information from, but your's is certainly false! There were two trials against Aladin (1987 and 1989). In both trials Apple Germany went to the judge with ridiculous "facts" about Aladin and the Mac. Did you know, for example, that the "Finder" is responsible for the User Interface of the Mac, because it's the software, which draws windows, dialog boxes etc...? Apple Germany used informations of this kind in the court. But - again - we just couldn't afford the trials. The sum in dispute has been 3,000,000 DM. There was a pirated version of Aladin in 1987, which had the Roms on disk. (There have been pirated versions of Magic Sac and Spectre 1.75 too.) But certainly it wasn't we who pirated our own software. Since then, Aladin hasn't been pirated anymore because of a new copy protection scheme. Is it true, that Dave Small has got troubles with Apple USA? If so, I'd like to know more about it (sorry Dave, asking you again). > This other guy (I wish I knew his name! I'm not intentionally being > insulting) got stomped on by Apple, and was put out of business. Here he is: +-----------------------+---------------------------------------------------+ ! Pit Capitain, DX-PC ! US: ...uunet!philabs!linus!nixbur!capitain.pad ! ! Nixdorf Computer AG ! not US: ...{mcvax!}unido!nixpbe!capitain.pad ! +-----------------------+---------------------------------------------------+
portuesi@tweezers.esd.sgi.com (Michael Portuesi) (12/04/89)
>>>>> On 29 Nov 89 14:30:00 GMT, greg.trice@canremote.uucp (GREG TRICE) said:
greg> Why does everybody assume that a Mac emulator has to use Mac ROMs or any
greg> Mac code at all? There are an infinite number of ways to do a given job
greg> and it is perfectly possible for somebody to carefully read all the Mac
greg> documentation and then sit down and write code that will do exactly the
greg> same job as the Mac roms, but have not a byte in common with them in
greg> code. This is the situation with most IBM compatible systems. Though
greg> they are functionally identical to the IBM product, their ROMs contain
greg> different, but functionally identical code.
greg> It should be perfectly possible to produce a Mac emulator that used no
greg> ROMs at all, but was wholly disk based (given sufficient memory to hold
greg> the quondam ROM code in RAM).
Go ahead and try...I'll see you in a few years.
The Apple ROMS are the result of several hundred person-years of work,
and you expect one enterprising hacker to recode them, and do all
of the testing and revising to ensure even a reasonable amount of
compatibilty? Obviously you've never developed software for a living.
--M
--
__
\/ Michael Portuesi Silicon Graphics Computer Systems, Inc.
portuesi@SGI.COM Entry Systems Division -- Engineering
He says, "Take me to your leader" -- and I say, "Do you mean....George?"bro@titan.rice.edu (Douglas Monk) (12/05/89)
The suggestion was made that instead of using a cartridge, code that works like the MAC ROMs but doesn't violate Apple's copyright could be used. This is a great idea. No one has done it yet, which is one of the reasons why no Apple clones (other than STs :-) exist yet. It is a technical difficulty, or a legal one? How does Phoenix et al. get away with IBM clone ROMs? Licensing? Work-alike? Doug Monk Disclaimer: These views are mine, not necessarily my organization's.
laba-1aj@web-1d.berkeley.edu (John Kawakami) (12/05/89)
In article <3395@brazos.Rice.edu> bro@titan.rice.edu (Douglas Monk) writes: >The suggestion was made that instead of using a cartridge, code that works >like the MAC ROMs but doesn't violate Apple's copyright could be used. This >is a great idea. No one has done it yet, which is one of the reasons why no >Apple clones (other than STs :-) exist yet. >It is a technical difficulty, or a legal one? How does Phoenix et al. get >away with IBM clone ROMs? Licensing? Work-alike? > >Doug Monk >Disclaimer: These views are mine, not necessarily my organization's. The clone chips cover only the BIOS part of the OS. Basically, all that does is control access to resources (drives, video, etc). The rest of the OS is available on disk from Microsoft. The Mac is a different story: not only would you have to re-engineer the basic stuff, you'd have to create the screen interface, event management, and all that other stuff. It's the difference between cloning BIOS and cloning Gemdos, the AES and VDI. John Kawakami / kawakami@earthquake.berkeley.edu / Plastic Forever! laba-1aj@web.berkeley.edu /
steve@thelake.UUCP (Steve Yelvington) (12/05/89)
In article <3395@brazos.Rice.edu>, bro@titan.rice.edu (Douglas Monk) writes ... > >The suggestion was made that instead of using a cartridge, code that works >like the MAC ROMs but doesn't violate Apple's copyright could be used. This >is a great idea. No one has done it yet, which is one of the reasons why no >Apple clones (other than STs :-) exist yet. > >It is a technical difficulty, or a legal one? How does Phoenix et al. get >away with IBM clone ROMs? Licensing? Work-alike? > Work-alike. But there is a big difference between PC-clone ROMs and Macintosh ROMs. The PC-clone ROM is quite tiny, just a BIOS (Basic Input-Output System) that allows the rest of MS-DOS to function. Macintosh ROMs provide a much richer foundation for the portion of the Mac OS that comes on disk. Recreating the functionality of the Mac ROMs would be quite a technical achievement. If anyone solves the technical difficulty, though, they had better be prepared for an ugly legal fight. Apple already has sued Digital Research over GEM and Microsoft over Windows, and they're not even Mac-compatible. -- Steve Yelvington at the (almost frozen enough to skate) lake in Minnesota UUCP: ... pwcs.StPaul.GOV!stag!thelake!steve
dlm@druwy.ATT.COM (Dan Moore) (12/06/89)
in article <3395@brazos.Rice.edu>, bro@titan.rice.edu (Douglas Monk) says: > The suggestion was made that instead of using a cartridge, code that works > like the MAC ROMs but doesn't violate Apple's copyright could be used. This > is a great idea. No one has done it yet, which is one of the reasons why no > Apple clones (other than STs :-) exist yet. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ not true, there is an Amiga Mac emulator. > It is a technical difficulty, or a legal one? How does Phoenix et al. get > away with IBM clone ROMs? Licensing? Work-alike? The problem is partly technical and partly legal (or at least lots of money for lawyers). To "legally clone" a BIOS (or ToolBox in Mac'ese) you need to teams of programmers and some lawyers. The first team studies the code to be duplicated and generates a highly detailed description of the code. The description would include statements about register contents, data structures passed, etc. for the various routines in the BIOS. It then states what the routine does including any side effects (eg. global variables that are changed). It should also document any bugs in the code (ie. deviations from the published specifications for the BIOS). This description is then sent to the lawyers who save copies of everything (documentation for any suits that come up) and then send a copy to the second programmer team. The second progammer team has to be made up of people who have NEVER looked at the actual code to be duplicated (ie. they never used a debugger to look at the Mac ROMs or the IBM PC BIOS or whatever). They also can NOT talk to the first programmer team except by having the lawyers forward messages (which are filed just like everything else.) They then use the descriptions to write routines that do the exact same thing as the original. They may even clone the bugs, some of the 3rd party EGA cards for PC's have the same bugs as IBM's EGA card. When you get done you have what should be a legal duplicate of the first program's functionality. There may be problems due to copyrights on the visual appearance (look & feel) or patents on algorithims, etc. Hopefully the documentation the lawyers have will be enough to prove that you did things legally (Phoenix pulled it off with BIOS ROMs for PC's). The technical problems are really just time problems. The Mac ROMs are very complex (much more complicated than the TOS ROMs for instance). Given the large number of functions contained in the ROMs it will take quite a while to duplicate them. And while they are working to duplicate a given release of ROMs (eg. the 256K ROMs in the Mac II) Apple will be working on new, improved ROMs with new features. So when you get done you may have something that is already obsolete. This isn't a problem with cloning the BIOS ROMs in a PC, the functions of those ROMs is pretty stable with very few changes over time. No company has decided that the time and expense (at least one year, at least 10 or 20 programmers, plus lawyers, and Apple will sue when you get done) is worth the expected return. Dan Moore AT&T Bell Labs Denver dlm@druwy.ATT.COM
rehrauer@apollo.HP.COM (Steve Rehrauer) (12/07/89)
In article <3395@brazos.Rice.edu> bro@titan.rice.edu (Douglas Monk) writes: >The suggestion was made that instead of using a cartridge, code that works >like the MAC ROMs but doesn't violate Apple's copyright could be used. This >is a great idea. No one has done it yet, which is one of the reasons why no >Apple clones (other than STs :-) exist yet. > >It is a technical difficulty, or a legal one? Primarily the former, secondarily the latter. To "do it right"; i.e.: to avoid committing legal hari-kari, companies use what I've heard called a "clean room" approach. Two design teams work on the problem. Team #1 looks at the *specifications* for what they're trying to clone. It's probably fair for this team to look at ROM images, but I'm sure it'd be better if they didn't. Team #1 generates their own specs for how to functionally reproduce what is to be cloned. Team #2 only sees this spec, and can never look at the original materials team #1 used. No fair going to team #1 and saying, "Hey, we're having a hard time seeing how to do 'bletch'; how did They do it?" If the original specs were accurate, and team #1 did a good job, and team #2 did a good job, the clone works well. And even after all that, if the opposition is sufficiently larger than yourself, they may be able bleed you dry in court. You may be perfectly legal in what you've done, but proving it takes time and $$$. > How does Phoenix et al. get >away with IBM clone ROMs? Licensing? Work-alike? What's in IBM ROM BIOS is surely an order of magnitude (or more) easier to reverse-engineer than what's in Mac ROMs. Not to mention that it's (at least originally, and perhaps still) far more lucrative if you succeed with IBM BIOS. Don't hold your breath for Mac OS clones. Apple has shown itself to be quite willing to vigorously defend what it considers its turf, whether "common sense" says they have a case or not. The cost of developing a Mac clone "done right", plus the possibility of locking horns with Apple in court afterwards, is enough to scare away most of the cloners. I'd expect to see Apple license their ROMs before we see clones, and they haven't been too receptive to that idea either. -- >>"Aaiiyeeee! Death from above!"<< | Steve Rehrauer, rehrauer@apollo.hp.com "Flee, lest we be trod upon!" | The Apollo System Division of H.P.
nemeth@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Gabe Nemeth) (12/07/89)
In article <PORTUESI.89Dec4153459@tweezers.esd.sgi.com> portuesi@sgi.com (Michael Portuesi) writes: >>>>>> On 29 Nov 89 14:30:00 GMT, greg.trice@canremote.uucp (GREG TRICE) said: > >greg> Why does everybody assume that a Mac emulator has to use Mac ROMs or any >greg> Mac code at all? There are an infinite number of ways to do a given job >greg> and it is perfectly possible for somebody to carefully read all the Mac >greg> documentation and then sit down and write code that will do exactly the >greg> same job as the Mac roms, but have not a byte in common with them in >greg> code. This is the situation with most IBM compatible systems. Though >greg> they are functionally identical to the IBM product, their ROMs contain >greg> different, but functionally identical code. >greg> It should be perfectly possible to produce a Mac emulator that used no >greg> ROMs at all, but was wholly disk based (given sufficient memory to hold >greg> the quondam ROM code in RAM). > > >Go ahead and try...I'll see you in a few years. > >The Apple ROMS are the result of several hundred person-years of work, >and you expect one enterprising hacker to recode them, and do all >of the testing and revising to ensure even a reasonable amount of >compatibilty? Obviously you've never developed software for a living. > > --M >-- >__ >\/ Michael Portuesi Silicon Graphics Computer Systems, Inc. > portuesi@SGI.COM Entry Systems Division -- Engineering > >He says, "Take me to your leader" -- and I say, "Do you mean....George?" One thing a lot of people don't realize is that the amount of necessary code in the roms is quite small. Thats because the system file contains patches to the different revisions of mac roms that overlay buggy or outdated code. So - all the roms have to contain is stuff found in the basic 64k roms. /leonard
Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com (12/07/89)
Pit Capitain, the author of the ALADIN Mac emulator has replied to a lot of the questions and comments about his offer to release the ALADIN emulator as shareware... One thing I've been wondering about though, is how exactly was the ALADIN implemented..? Obviously it's a disk based, software emulator.. but, how was the problem of needing Mac ROMs addressed..? Was a cartridge similar to the Magic Sac offered to hold the ROMs..? Were you required to figure out something on your own to hold the ROMs..? What exactly was a running configuration of ALADIN like..? BobR
covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) (12/07/89)
In article <4476@druwy.ATT.COM>, dlm@druwy.ATT.COM (Dan Moore) writes: > > No company has decided that the time and expense (at least one > year, at least 10 or 20 programmers, plus lawyers, and Apple will > sue when you get done) is worth the expected return. > > > > Dan Moore > AT&T Bell Labs > Denver > dlm@druwy.ATT.COM Dan, I thought that I read about a company that wrote a Mac Toolbox clone for the IBM PC. supposedly, any C code that strictly adhered to the Mac Toolbox rules could be recompiled on an IBM PC. And with suitable PC hardware (color monitor, mouse, or whatever), the application program would execute identically on the PC as on the Mac. Now, if the ENTIRE PC market isn't big enough to warrant such a mac Toolbox clone, than maybe the USA Atari ST/TT market is! :-) :-) :-) Anyway, I read about this about a year ago, but haven't heard any more. So, either the product didn't exist or Apple simply bought the company. Someone could make a good profit by simply STARTING a Mac Toolbox clone, and than selling out to Apple Corp!! :-) ? :-( -- Richard E. Covert (covertr@gtephx) (602) - 581-4652 | AG Communications Systems, Phoenix AZ | UUCP: {ncar!noao!asuvax | uunet!zardoz!hrc | att}!gtephx!covertr
lsr@Apple.COM (Larry Rosenstein) (12/08/89)
In article <1989Dec6.222827.16338@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> nemeth@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Gabe Nemeth) writes: > >One thing a lot of people don't realize is that the amount of necessary code >in the roms is quite small. Thats because the system file contains patches >to the different revisions of mac roms that overlay buggy or outdated code. >So - all the roms have to contain is stuff found in the basic 64k roms. Not true. There are many routines that were added to the 128K ROMs that were never made available as disk patches. (For example, there are a lot of Resource Manager extensions and QuickDraw calls.) So a 64K ROM + System Disk does not equal a 128K ROM. -- Larry Rosenstein, Object Specialist Apple Computer, Inc. 20525 Mariani Ave, MS 46-B Cupertino, CA 95014 AppleLink:Rosenstein1 domain:lsr@Apple.COM UUCP:{sun,voder,nsc,decwrl}!apple!lsr
esp_05@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Stdnt 05) (12/08/89)
Although Apple's DOS is really (IMHO) messed up, you have to hand it to them for doing a really, really nice job with their graphics and user interface routines. Anyone who suggests that creating an Apple clone would be like creating an IBM clone, do-able by a small group of hackers in their spare time, probably hasn't programmed a Mac. Once you program a Mac, you can really appreciate the time put into that part of their OS when you realize that maintaining windows on the screen in virtually EFFORTLESS. I find myself quite impressed by many aspects of the toolbox, and I realize why the original low-powered Macs were awkward to use and am surprised why it took them so long to implement their OS on a better machine, the Mac II. If I were writing a clone of the MAC OS, I wouldn't know where to begin. Eric Ruck
tim@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Tim Northrup) (12/08/89)
covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) writes: >Dan, I thought that I read about a company that wrote a Mac Toolbox clone >for the IBM PC. supposedly, any C code that strictly adhered to the Mac >Toolbox rules could be recompiled on an IBM PC. And with suitable PC >hardware (color monitor, mouse, or whatever), the application program >would execute identically on the PC as on the Mac. >-- > Richard E. Covert (covertr@gtephx) Don't know if this is what you are referring to or not, but in the 6/13/88 issue of InfoWorld was an article on work on Intermedia at Brown University. I think they used a "Toolbox Emulator" like the one you mention. The text reads, in part: "The system originally was created for the IBM RT PC under Unix 4.2 (with a Macintosh-like user interface) using Cadmac, a Mac application framework from Cadmus. However, with the advent of Apple's A/UX and multitasking, the Brown team was able to move part of the system to the Macintosh II." So, Cadmac may be the product you were referring to. -- Tim Northrup +------------------------------------------+ +---------------------------------+ GEnie: T.Northrup | UUCP: uunet!crdgw1!brspyr1!tim | Air Warrior: "Duke" | ARPA: tim@brspyr1.BRS.Com +------------------------------------------+
mjv@iris.brown.edu (Marshall Vale) (12/09/89)
In article <6555@brspyr1.BRS.Com> tim@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Tim Northrup) writes: > Don't know if this is what you are referring to or not, but in the 6/13/88 > issue of InfoWorld was an article on work on Intermedia at Brown University. > I think they used a "Toolbox Emulator" like the one you mention. The > text reads, in part: > > "The system originally was created for the IBM RT PC under > Unix 4.2 (with a Macintosh-like user interface) using Cadmac, > a Mac application framework from Cadmus. However, with the > advent of Apple's A/UX and multitasking, the Brown team > was able to move part of the system to the Macintosh II." > > So, Cadmac may be the product you were referring to. Did someone mention Intermedia?? Why that's made by IRIS at Brown, and by golly that's where I work! A company called Cadmus reverse enginered the toolbox, the product called CadMac. Upon completing that task, they soon went out of business and Apple bought up all the rights to it. IRIS was the only place that still has the rights to use CadMac (though we don't anymore). The product that I think Tim was talking about was a cross compiling system that emulated toolbox routines on the IBM PC. By taking legal-working Mac C source code and compiling it with this special compiler, you could get it to run on the PC. I'm assuming that they wrote their own windowing system and look and such but basically used the same names and arguments in their toolbox as in the Mac. It was big about a 1 year ago and haven't heard much since. disclamer: words are my own and no one else's. -- mjv@iris.brown.edu "And, oh! Father Christmas, if you love me at all, Bring me a big, red india-rubber ball." A.A. Milne "Now We are Six"
dsmall@well.UUCP (David Small) (12/10/89)
Hmmm .. shareware Aladin, eh? I'm also surprised to hear that I've been quoted as saying anything negative about Aladin. The only thing I recall was a comparison between it and Spectre 128, and that is an apples-and-oranges comparison (no pun meant). I use the 128K ROMs, and get the benefits of that; Aladin uses the 64's, and gets the bugs in those. For those that don't know, the reason Spectre runs all the Mac programs that Aladin can't has nothing to do with our relative programming skill, etc; it's just the 64K ROMs are obsolete and much software doesn't run on them. I'll say it again -- while the makers of Aladin and I had different ideas about how things should be done, I feel the Aladin was implemented quite well according to their vision. I don't happen to agree with the vision, but I can agree with the competence, ok? Since both the MagicSac 6.1 and Aladin 3.0 use 64K ROMs, it is at least fair to compare them. Both have strong and weak points. The Aladin does a superior job with serial ports (SERD) by far! The Magic Sac doesn't require a patcher program to "fix up" Mac programs before running them. And so forth and so on ... by the time you end up comparing strong and weak points, I think they come out equal -overall-, more or less. The Magic Sac at one time sold for $149. The price declined to $79, then to $49, in ads in START magazine. I am repeatedly told that the unitit now offered at $40, $20, or free with purchase of Translator. Essentially, that's the U.S. market for a 64K ROM based Mac emulator. And it's my opinion that the Aladin-shareware will meet much the same response, alas. It's too easy to slip into the "features trap", when in reality both Magic Sac and Aladin are "icing" on the ROM "cake". The truth is, using 64K ROMs automatically breaks a large amount of Mac software. Even Apple doesn't support them anymore; they gave up fixing bugs on bugs. Very quickly, Hypercard, Quark X-Press, MacWrite 5 & II, MacPaint 2, MultiFinder, Systems & Finders past Finder 5.3 / System 3.2 (obsolete in anyone's book; we're at Finder 6.1 / System 6.0.4 now), CDEV's, Adobe Illustrator, Aldus Freehand ... well, I could fill up a few pages with this, but I think I've made my point. Apple and its developers have abandoned the 1983 64K ROMs, and with good reason. These programs are what make a Mac into a useful tool that people are wiling to spend money for. To me, it is irrelevant that Aladin does a nicer job on the serial port, or RESET button, or whatever, if it won't run the software I want to run. The icing on the cake doesn't matter, be it Magic Sac, Aladin, or chocolate. At the moment, I feel the state of the art in Mac emulation, on both Amiga and ST, is a 128K ROM emulator that is capable of directly read/writing Mac disks. Things have progressed a long way since the original 64K ROM emulators debuted in 1986. I do hope that if this product is made availabl as shareware, that people do not expect it to do what Spectre / AMAX can -- and thus end up turned off to the newer products. As for Apple, I've always been square with them, and they've treated me with the same courtesy. There's nothing to tell there that hasn't been told sixty times -- we agreed not to name the product MacCartridge and not to sell Mac ROMs. (Now, if you want to look at something *interesting*, delve into the court documents surrounding the origins on the Microsoft-Apple look&feel lawsuit; Data Pacific's name is all over them. I think they are online on BIX; at least, I was sent them from there.) If I may ask -- can the story of the development of Aladin be told? I remember the name Mathias Greve, and something about two brothers who did the original product; I'm not familiar with the shareware offerer's name. I'd like to hear it if you'd care to tell it. Again, if you'll check through several interviews and articles, you'll find I have said good things about Aladin -- and that I've maintained that comparing 64K ROMs to 128K ROMs is unfair. And I thought doing sound through the parallel port was really a neat idea; the overhead of doing it through the sound chip was pretty hairy. Anyway, I guess that's my comment on the "shareware Mac". Please, be very careful, for your own sakes, that Apple is aware that you're not putting ROMs on disk and don't allow EPROMS. And be very very careful of "derivative work" issues surrounding patching software to run on the Aladin, ok? There's some real minefields there to be cautious of. If any of the makers of Aladin ever make it to Denver, please give me a call, okay? Let's go get a beer. -- thanks, Dave Small / "I drink Foster's, personally / Gadgets
RiddCJ@computer-science.birmingham.ac.UK (Chris Ridd) (12/11/89)
If Aladin has gone public domain, why is it still being sold by the UK
distributors Signa? They are still advertising it!
It was mentioned that the authors were taken to court in Germany by Apple -
as far as I know, to avoid this, Proficomp have moved to Holland.
Chris (a Spectre 128 owner, and proud of it!(but awaiting a GCR))
/*
* Snail mail address:
* Chris Ridd, "Wave after wave, each mightier than the last
* School of Computer Science, 'Til last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep
* Birmingham University, And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged
* UK Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame"
*
*/covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) (12/12/89)
In article <22472@brunix.UUCP>, mjv@iris.brown.edu (Marshall Vale) writes: > The product that I think Tim was talking about was a cross compiling > system that emulated toolbox routines on the IBM PC. By taking > legal-working > Mac C source code and compiling it with this special compiler, you could > get it to run on the PC. I'm assuming that they wrote their own windowing > system and look and such but basically used the same names and arguments > in their toolbox as in the Mac. It was big about a 1 year ago and haven't > heard much since. > That is the tool that I was referring to. It was a special 'C' library that allowed you to compile Mac C code on an IBM PC. Then the new PC code would execute EXACTLY the same as the Mac code. it seems like a simple enough idea. And it seemed like a real neat idea. Because you could port the 'C' Library to other machines, such as the Atari ST. Then, MicroSoft could recompile their MS WORD for the ST. It would open up a whole world of Mac software for the ST. And the PC. And the Amiga. It is a shame that the library isn't readily available. -- Richard E. Covert, Lead Engineer of Software Tools Group AG Communications Systems, Phoenix AZ (602) - 581-4652 TCP/IP: covertr@gtephx UUCP: {ncar!noao!asuvax | uunet!zardoz!hrc | att}!gtephx!covertr
greg.trice@canremote.uucp (GREG TRICE) (12/12/89)
Yes I have, lots of it. What you don't realize is that just because Apple needed 128k of code, and N man-years of work doesn't necessarily mean that the task at hand needs that. Depending on the skill - and more important - insight - of programmers, the same task may result in solutions that are very different in code size and time taken. I have examples at hand of functionally identical programs, one of which is twenty times the size of the other. And the large one probably took fifty times as long to debug. I've never disassembled a Mac ROM, so I can't give any views on the quality of the code therein, but knowing (a) how slow a Mac is and (b) that some at least of the code was written in Pascal (probably by some structured programming fetishist) I suspect that most of the code is pretty awful. Of course I wasn't necessarily advocating that anybody actually try it; knowing Apple's penchant for suing everybody, I'd have every incentive to make any machine I designed as unlike a Mac as possible. Anyway, is there really any genuinely indispensable program available only on the Mac? Even if there were, it would probably be an easier task to patch the program to run on the ST than create an (even slower) Mac emulator. --- * Via ProDoor 3.2aR
jdg@elmgate.UUCP (Jeff Gortatowsky CUST) (01/05/90)
In article <89122619395637@masnet.uucp> greg.trice@canremote.uucp (GREG TRICE) writes: >Yes I have, lots of it. What you don't realize is that just because >Apple needed 128k of code, and N man-years of work doesn't necessarily >mean that the task at hand needs that. Depending on the skill - and more >important - insight - of programmers, the same task may result in >solutions that are very different in code size and time taken. I have >examples at hand of functionally identical programs, one of which is >twenty times the size of the other. And the large one probably took >fifty times as long to debug. I've never disassembled a Mac ROM, so I >can't give any views on the quality of the code therein, but knowing (a) >how slow a Mac is and (b) that some at least of the code was written in >Pascal (probably by some structured programming fetishist) I suspect >that most of the code is pretty awful. What makes you think the "code" that apple has written is awful? Just speed? In that event (no pun), the Mac's of new (SE 30, cx etc) are MUCH faster than any ole' ST in "raw horespower". But, a Mac + clocks at some 7.xx mhz, not enough for a noticable difference. In disk i/o, there is a definite advantage in the ST as DMA (direct memory access) is applied to the task. Screen i/o? The MAC is doin' a WHOLE lot more work than is "visible" to you. And is as well MUCH more versitile in what can be done. In that "128k of rom" are over 800 functions. Did you know the Mac has fixed point built in to the rom? Did you know it has a float library in rom for dealing w/ tiny float values? + or - 2 to 30 decimal places. Did you know it has a VERY handy clipboard for use w/in virtually ALL applications?. Did you know the O/S is extensible? Da's TRULY multitask. W/ Multifinder, the whole machine multitasks (cute too!) Apple is supposed to release System 7.0 shortly, which, supports virtual memory (w/ HD's, over Appletalk etc) and a TON of other features. The Mac as a "whole" is just a fascinating little gizmo! My only beefs w/ apple is pricyness (which atari has emulated in the Mega's), and lack of "cheap" color. (although I'd imagine that'll change too shortly). In adition, the Macs one of the few "real" games in town. It's widely used in buisiness, it has GOBS of software available both commercially & Public Domain (over 2 gigabytes easily PD). Still thats Penuts compared to IBM. It would seem your bashing a machine w/o exactly knowing any facts. I love my atari, its a fascinating box. But, realistically it is not in the same league as PC's, Mac's, and recently Amiga's too. Don't be blinded by names & jargons, but, if you must at least pick a name that beleives in the computer user. -- Jeff Gortatowsky-Eastman Kodak Company .....rochester!kodak!elmgate!jdg (use uuhosts or such to find path to rochester) Eastman Kodak makes film not comments. Therefore these comments are mine not theirs.